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Medina accuses Sarmento of “impreparation” or “falsehood” and says that “the country does not have any budget problem”
The deputies of the Budget, Finance and Public Administration Commission approved this Thursday a request from Chega to hear, as a matter of urgency, the governor of the Bank of Portugal in parliament.
At the meeting of the parliamentary commission, Chega’s request to listen to the governor of the Bank of Portugal (BdP), Mário Centeno, It was approved with the abstention of Livre and the favorable votes of all the others.
The Bank of Portugal recorded a negative operating result before taxes of 1,054 million euros and zero net profit in 2023, according to information published by Jornal de Negócios, on April 11.
Chega intends, in this sequence, to question Mário Centeno about what “measures he took to mitigate the potential losses already foreseen, and taking into account reports from other European and global central banks” and “what measures should have already been taken or what he plans to come to implement” in this sense.
The banking regulator will not officially present the accounts until May 16, but the Minister of Finance said he was “surprised” by the news, despite the fact that the governor of the Bank of Portugal has indicated for some time that the central bank – like that the other central banks – banks in Europe – would no longer have positive results due to the tightening of monetary policy.
In a request, submitted in November last year, Chega had asked to hear from Mário Centeno, after former Prime Minister António Costa revealed that he had proposed to the President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, the name of the governor of the Bank of Portugal. to replace him in office. The Ethics Committee of the European Central Bank (ECB) concluded that the governor of the Bank of Portugal did not act in a way that compromised his independence in the case of the invitation made by António Costa to replace him.
Mário Centeno praised, at the end of April, that Europe faces “a great sacrifice in the fight against inflation”, making a greater effort than in other jurisdictions to reach the 2% objective.
Source: Observadora
